PHOENIX-- --Once again, we meet at the intersection of sports and politics, and once again I'm going to ignore the glaring "Don't Walk" sign and cross right over into my first Super Bowl stream of consciousness. If you haven't already noticed, Hillary Clinton's New York Giants are down here in John McCain's backyard to play Mitt Romney's New England Patriots, and the latest ESPN poll shows that Hillary's team is preferred by a solid majority of America's football fans. The New York Post went so far as to declare the Giants "America's Team" in Sunday's editions, and if you can't believe the New York Post, well, I think we've got a serious crisis of national confidence on our hands at a critical time in our country's history.

W ouldn't you know it? Baltimore sports fans finally find a New York team they can get behind, and look what happens. The Colts at long last avenged their 1969 loss to Joe Namath and the upstart Jets on Sunday, and we're left on the short end of the yard marker both times. Now what do you do? Do you go with the ABC theory - Anybody But the Colts - or do you hold your nose and stay loyal to the AFC and hope to take solace in the fact that the Ravens lost in the playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl champion for the third time in the past four years?

He stood in the middle of the Dallas Cowboys' locker room, soaking up the moment, savoring the high-water mark of his brief but stormy stewardship.The one thing Jerry Jones didn't do after Dallas clinched its first playoff berth since 1985, though, was gloat -- even if the Cowboys owner had earned the right.Three years ago, Jones' controversial entrance into Dallas and the NFL was greeted with cynicism and second-guessing. The erstwhile Arkansas oilman had fired Tom Landry, retired Tex Schramm and totally reshaped the image of "America's Team."

The New Orleans Saints vs. the Indianapolis Colts is the Super Bowl most Americans wanted to see. Almost every football fan has ties to a local team, but once you get past those, this is the perfect game. This is The Game. NFL executives know that Americans love offense, which is why they often change rules that contribute to scoring and why they are giggling all over themselves about Super Bowl XLIV in Miami on Feb. 7. It doesn't get much better than this. You get the No. 1 teams from each conference, and two of the highest scoring offenses in the league.

W ouldn't you know it? Baltimore sports fans finally find a New York team they can get behind, and look what happens. The Colts at long last avenged their 1969 loss to Joe Namath and the upstart Jets on Sunday, and we're left on the short end of the yard marker both times. Now what do you do? Do you go with the ABC theory - Anybody But the Colts - or do you hold your nose and stay loyal to the AFC and hope to take solace in the fact that the Ravens lost in the playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl champion for the third time in the past four years?

The Dallas Cowboys - known as America's Team since 1979 - will play for the first time at PSINet Stadium on Sunday. If Ravens president David Modell had his way, America's Team would play here permanently. That's because Modell's first choice for the team's new name when the Cleveland Browns moved here in 1996 was Americans - after the Baltimore-Ohio train known as the American. "We would've done the whole locomotive thing, with the American flag," Modell said. "From Day One, you could argue, who is America's Team?

GLENDALE, Ariz.-- --All season long, they were the bullies. The New England Patriots were perfect even when they weren't. They beat teams when it seemed they couldn't. More often, they beat teams viciously, without mercy or concern for anyone or anything except their own legacy, their own feeling of vengeance and superiority. The Patriots come out of the Super Bowl with a legacy, all right. They blew it like no other team had before. They're not the first NFL team to finish 18-1. No other team picked a worse time to get that one loss, however.

INDIANAPOLIS -- On Thursday night, it didn't look as if the George Mason faithful would be represented at the site of the Final Four in any comparable way with the other three national championship contenders. Nor did it look as if the apparel stores had to worry about their skimpy stock of Patriots gear running out. Yesterday, that was all proved wrong. Mason is here, and if there aren't enough T-shirts, caps and giant foam fingers to go around, then so be it. With the shortest distance to go to get to Indianapolis, the fans showed up last, but not quietly.

Just 38 days shy of the 30th anniversary of the Ice Bowl, the Dallas Cowboys go back to Lambeau Field on Sunday for a game that will contrast how they once were and how they are now.The Cowboys' duel with the Packers -- a team that has lost seven straight games, including three in the playoffs, in Dallas -- is the game they have been waiting for in Green Bay since the NFL schedule was announced."

William Bennett, who wrote "The Book of Virtues," lamented the Dallas Cowboys' off-field problems in an interview with Sports Illustrated last week."In the old days, the Cowboys were great, and you looked up to them. Now it's different. Now you look down on them. . . . I think the Cowboys are hurting the country's morale. As one Texan said to me recently, 'If this is America's team, then woe is America.' "Bennett's comments are a tribute to the image machine run in the old days by Tex Schramm, who turned the Cowboys into America's Team with the help of NFL Films.

GLENDALE, Ariz.-- --All season long, they were the bullies. The New England Patriots were perfect even when they weren't. They beat teams when it seemed they couldn't. More often, they beat teams viciously, without mercy or concern for anyone or anything except their own legacy, their own feeling of vengeance and superiority. The Patriots come out of the Super Bowl with a legacy, all right. They blew it like no other team had before. They're not the first NFL team to finish 18-1. No other team picked a worse time to get that one loss, however.

PHOENIX-- --Once again, we meet at the intersection of sports and politics, and once again I'm going to ignore the glaring "Don't Walk" sign and cross right over into my first Super Bowl stream of consciousness. If you haven't already noticed, Hillary Clinton's New York Giants are down here in John McCain's backyard to play Mitt Romney's New England Patriots, and the latest ESPN poll shows that Hillary's team is preferred by a solid majority of America's football fans. The New York Post went so far as to declare the Giants "America's Team" in Sunday's editions, and if you can't believe the New York Post, well, I think we've got a serious crisis of national confidence on our hands at a critical time in our country's history.

INDIANAPOLIS -- On Thursday night, it didn't look as if the George Mason faithful would be represented at the site of the Final Four in any comparable way with the other three national championship contenders. Nor did it look as if the apparel stores had to worry about their skimpy stock of Patriots gear running out. Yesterday, that was all proved wrong. Mason is here, and if there aren't enough T-shirts, caps and giant foam fingers to go around, then so be it. With the shortest distance to go to get to Indianapolis, the fans showed up last, but not quietly.

I've read a lot of parenting books over the years - not that you'd know it from all of the Redskins stuff around the house - and I can't remember any of them postulating that the best way to deal with repeated bad behavior is to reward it with an extra $5 million. Obviously, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and I don't have the same taste in self-help literature, because that's exactly what he did when he signed superstar toddler Terrell Owens to a three-year contract yesterday. The deal, the terms of which were reported by ESPN.

DALLAS COWBOYS coach Bill Parcells hasn't lost it, but he needs some help to rescue America's Team. If you've watched this team and the decisions the Cowboys have made in the past year, you have to wonder what has gone wrong. America's Team has become an NFL embarrassment. The Cowboys surrendered 30 second-half points yesterday, and were humiliated for the third straight week losing, 30-10, to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Before the game was over, there was a suggestion that a new era in Dallas was about to begin because two promising rookies were on the field for the Cowboys in quarterback Drew Henson and running back Julius Jones.

The Dallas Cowboys - known as America's Team since 1979 - will play for the first time at PSINet Stadium on Sunday. If Ravens president David Modell had his way, America's Team would play here permanently. That's because Modell's first choice for the team's new name when the Cleveland Browns moved here in 1996 was Americans - after the Baltimore-Ohio train known as the American. "We would've done the whole locomotive thing, with the American flag," Modell said. "From Day One, you could argue, who is America's Team?

PASADENA, Calif. -- It could be one of those heart-warming father-and-son Super Bowl stories.Linebacker Ken Norton Jr., the son of the former boxer, has a chance to become a champion in his own right Sunday when the Dallas Cowboys play the Buffalo Bills.But Norton Jr. won't have his father cheering him Sunday. He won't even talk to or about his father.They had a falling out last spring, and the rift hasn't been healed."I don't have much of a comment," he said last night, when he was asked about his father.

DALLAS COWBOYS coach Bill Parcells hasn't lost it, but he needs some help to rescue America's Team. If you've watched this team and the decisions the Cowboys have made in the past year, you have to wonder what has gone wrong. America's Team has become an NFL embarrassment. The Cowboys surrendered 30 second-half points yesterday, and were humiliated for the third straight week losing, 30-10, to the Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. Before the game was over, there was a suggestion that a new era in Dallas was about to begin because two promising rookies were on the field for the Cowboys in quarterback Drew Henson and running back Julius Jones.

Just 38 days shy of the 30th anniversary of the Ice Bowl, the Dallas Cowboys go back to Lambeau Field on Sunday for a game that will contrast how they once were and how they are now.The Cowboys' duel with the Packers -- a team that has lost seven straight games, including three in the playoffs, in Dallas -- is the game they have been waiting for in Green Bay since the NFL schedule was announced."